Introduction

Health care decisions grow more complex by the day. New diagnostic tests, cutting-edge treatments, and the wide availability of health-related information in popular media have all contributed to this complexity. Still, the fundamental need to provide evidence-based care that is consistent with patients’ values and preferences remains the central goal of medicine. Fortunately, our understanding of how patients and practitioners make decisions is also enriched by an expanding body of research on this subject. Patient decision support tools are a practical extension of research on decision making.

The contents of this toolkit were informed by extensive interviews with Oregon stakeholders. It also reflects a broad survey of the research literature, policy landscape, and existing tools created by those involved in this work. It is meant to be a toolkit in the truest sense; when a CCO medical director needs to survey the availability of free decision aids or a practitioner wants to know how best to incorporate a decision support tool into their busy practice, we hope this toolkit will provide a quick, reliable, and easy to use resource to assist them.

Objective

Implementing patient decision aids in practice can be fraught with challenges. This toolkit is intended to help address some of these challenges and aid both patients and providers in making high-quality decisions in the face of uncertainty. By promoting shared decision making, Oregon’s CCOs and other insurers can help to ensure that high-quality care is being provided as part of health care delivery system transformation.